From eec706180656d579996d44739629ebbd4f5c2f30 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeremy Walker Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2018 14:27:27 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 1/3] Update description.md --- exercises/hamming/description.md | 25 ++++++------------------- 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-) diff --git a/exercises/hamming/description.md b/exercises/hamming/description.md index 43b44bd329..f30e29c2c4 100644 --- a/exercises/hamming/description.md +++ b/exercises/hamming/description.md @@ -1,31 +1,18 @@ Calculate the Hamming difference between two DNA strands. -A mutation is simply a mistake that occurs during the creation or -copying of a nucleic acid, in particular DNA. Because nucleic acids are -vital to cellular functions, mutations tend to cause a ripple effect -throughout the cell. Although mutations are technically mistakes, a very -rare mutation may equip the cell with a beneficial attribute. In fact, -the macro effects of evolution are attributable by the accumulated -result of beneficial microscopic mutations over many generations. +Your body is made up of cells that contain DNA. Those cells regularly wear out and need replacing, which they achieve by dividing into daughter cells. In fact, the average human body experiences about 10 quadrillion cell divisions in a lifetime! -The simplest and most common type of nucleic acid mutation is a point -mutation, which replaces one base with another at a single nucleotide. +When cells divide, their DNA replicates too. Sometimes during this process mistakes happen and single pieces of DNA get encoded with the incorrect information. If we compare two strands of DNA and count the differences between them we can see how many mistakes occurred. This is known as the "Hamming Distance". -By counting the number of differences between two homologous DNA strands -taken from different genomes with a common ancestor, we get a measure of -the minimum number of point mutations that could have occurred on the -evolutionary path between the two strands. - -This is called the 'Hamming distance'. - -It is found by comparing two DNA strands and counting how many of the -nucleotides are different from their equivalent in the other string. +We read DNA using the letters C,A,G and T. Two strands might look like this: GAGCCTACTAACGGGAT CATCGTAATGACGGCCT ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ -The Hamming distance between these two DNA strands is 7. +The have 7 differences, and therefore the Hamming Difference is 7. + +The Hamming Difference is useful for lots of things in science, not just biology, so it's a nice phrase to be familiar with :) # Implementation notes From ea8936d717124f24d241d3434618aefff6f69300 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeremy Walker Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2018 14:40:41 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 2/3] Update description.md --- exercises/hamming/description.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/exercises/hamming/description.md b/exercises/hamming/description.md index f30e29c2c4..8f8281ca3d 100644 --- a/exercises/hamming/description.md +++ b/exercises/hamming/description.md @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ We read DNA using the letters C,A,G and T. Two strands might look like this: CATCGTAATGACGGCCT ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ -The have 7 differences, and therefore the Hamming Difference is 7. +They have 7 differences, and therefore the Hamming Difference is 7. The Hamming Difference is useful for lots of things in science, not just biology, so it's a nice phrase to be familiar with :) From 48e319505108dde6a5cc3e9dfeffb8c6730b889c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeremy Walker Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2018 11:17:58 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 3/3] Change Hamming Difference to Hamming Distance --- exercises/hamming/description.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/exercises/hamming/description.md b/exercises/hamming/description.md index 8f8281ca3d..8dcdce4147 100644 --- a/exercises/hamming/description.md +++ b/exercises/hamming/description.md @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Calculate the Hamming difference between two DNA strands. +Calculate the Hamming Distance between two DNA strands. Your body is made up of cells that contain DNA. Those cells regularly wear out and need replacing, which they achieve by dividing into daughter cells. In fact, the average human body experiences about 10 quadrillion cell divisions in a lifetime! @@ -10,9 +10,9 @@ We read DNA using the letters C,A,G and T. Two strands might look like this: CATCGTAATGACGGCCT ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ -They have 7 differences, and therefore the Hamming Difference is 7. +They have 7 differences, and therefore the Hamming Distance is 7. -The Hamming Difference is useful for lots of things in science, not just biology, so it's a nice phrase to be familiar with :) +The Hamming Distance is useful for lots of things in science, not just biology, so it's a nice phrase to be familiar with :) # Implementation notes